Read My Man Pendleton for Free Online Page A

be.
    Instead of sitting here at her father's dinner table, wondering if a big ol' marinara stain would come out of a one-hundred-dollar necktie, or if Pendleton would just have to toss the expensive accessory in the garbage.
    "So, Pendleton," she said as she fingered her spoon with idle interest, "have you gotten all settled in?"
    He leaned easily back in his chair. "Actually, Miss McClellan, no. I've barely had a chance to unpack."
    Telling herself that her curiosity about her father's new VP was no different from her curiosity about oh, say, the molecular structure of boron, she asked, "Where did you find a place to live?"
    He met her gaze levelly, looking far too confident for her comfort. "I bought a house in Old Louisville."
    Kit nodded, thinking the neighborhood suited him for some reason. The East End and
Oldham
County
, where most of the suits settled, were too new, too hip, too happening for someone like Pendleton. Old Louisville , with its big brick Victorians and big, inner-city trees somehow seemed a more likely choice. She could somehow see him fitting into an old, urban setting far better than a shiny, new suburban one.
    "
St. James Court
?" she guessed.
    He shook his head. "Two blocks over."
    She uttered a soft tsk. "Newcomer. Ah, well, it's something you can work on."
    "Actually, it is," he agreed with a broad smile that went way beyond boyish, and right into the realm of hubba-hubba. But he said nothing more to clarify his remark.
    So she steered the conversation down a new route. "You're not from Louisville originally, are you?"
    He chuckled, a rough, masculine sound reminiscent of a wind-swept canyon, and all Kit could think was, Ooooh, wow. "Is it that obvious?" he asked.
    "No," she told him honestly. "But Daddy hasn't hired anyone local for almost a year." She thought for a moment. "In fact, I think he's pretty much ruled out the entire Midwest now, haven't you, Daddy?"
    At the head of the table, her father wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, glared at his daughter, and ignored her question by taking a sip of his wine.
    So Kit returned her attention to the man seated across from her, and lowered her voice to a stage whisper before confessing, "I have a reputation for being rather … oh, unpredictable, shall we say? By now, it's reached as far as Chicago , Cincinnati , and Atlanta , thereby diminishing significantly the potential pool for Daddy to choose from."
    To his credit, Pendleton offered no discernible reaction whatever. "Do you? I have a cousin who has a reputation like that."
    Kit returned to her regular voice as she asked sweetly, "And is she an embarrassment to her family, too?"
    Pendleton shook his head. "Not at all. We just love her to pieces on the weekends they let her out of the home."
    Kit drummed her fingers more restlessly on the table. This wasn't going at all the way she had planned. "So where are you from?" she asked.
    He hesitated only a moment, but it was long enough for her to see that he was stalling. "Before coming to Hensley's, I worked in Philadelphia ," he told her.
    "Doing what?"
    He shrugged, but she got the impression the gesture was anything but negligent. "Pretty much the same thing I'm doing now."
    "Oh. You were making some rich, greedy corporation richer and greedier?"
    He smiled as he nodded, obviously proud of his accomplishments. "Something like that, yes."
    "So are you from Philadelphia originally?"
    "No."
    She waited for him to elaborate, but he showed no sign that he would do so. She had opened her mouth to ask for more details when, for some reason, she turned her gaze to the head of the table. Her father was leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, his attention utterly fixed on the byplay between her and Pendleton. He was watching her reaction to his new VP with great interest, a smug little smile playing about his lips. He looked to Kit very much like a man who was about to get exactly what he wanted. Like maybe ninety-nine-point-four